ARTICLES ABOUT ELECTION BY DATE - PAGE 4

Wednesday begins the third election cycle for three alumni seats to Penn State's board of trustees since the Jerry Sandusky scandal put the board under the microscope of many in the university community two years ago. Penn State will circulate nomination ballots starting Wednesday, and candidates will need to secure 50 nominations by Feb. 25 to appear on the election ballot in the spring. Nomination ballots will be sent automatically on Wednesday to alumni who have recently been active in the university's Alumni Association, donated to the university or requested a nomination ballot in either of the past two election cycles.

NEW YORK – Pitching team mates Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and slugger Frank Thomas were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in results announced on Wednesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The three were chosen in their first year of eligibility after waiting the required five years after their retirement and were the first trio so honored in 15 years. Right-hander Maddux, who won four consecutive Cy Young awards from 1992 and compiled a career mark of 355-227, was the leading vote-getter, elected by a landslide with 97.2 percent of the 571 ballots cast.

New leaders, who defied varying odds to become county executives, took their oaths of office in Lehigh and Northampton counties Monday. Lehigh County President Judge Carol McGinley administered the oath to Lehigh County Executive Tom Muller about noon Monday with the pomp and circumstance bestowed upon his contemporary, John Brown, a few hours later in Northampton County. Brown said he became emotional when he was welcomed by bagpipes and a color guard. "When I walked in, it kind of hits you," he said.

WASHINGTON — Area Congressman Jim Gerlach announced his retirement Monday, the latest in a string of congressional Republicans not seeking re-election in 2014. Gerlach, 58, represented a slice of Lehigh County before redistricting in 2010. His district still includes parts of Berks, Montgomery, Chester and Lebanon counties. In a statement, Gerlach said it is "simply time for me to move on to new challenges and to spend more time with my wife and family, who have been extremely supportive and have made significant sacrifices during my tenure in public office.

Sixteen candidates — including outgoing Mayor John Callahan's top aide, the principal of an elementary school, a deli owner and several business executives — have applied for the council seat Robert Donchez will vacate Monday when he is sworn in as Bethlehem's next mayor. City Council is scheduled Jan. 27 to interview the candidates in a public meeting and will decide in a special meeting scheduled for Jan. 30 who will fill Donchez's two-year unexpired term. Councilman Michael Recchiuti said he was impressed with the range of experience and amount of interest among the candidates.

NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Monday chose Carmen Farina, who has worked for 40 years as a teacher and administrator in the city school system, as the city's education chancellor. Farina, 70, has been an informal policy adviser to de Blasio for more than 12 years — ever since the mayor-elect served on a Brooklyn school board that made her district superintendent. Before that, she spent 22 years as a teacher at Public School 29 in the borough's Cobble Hill section. "For years I've watched her innovate new ways to reach students, transform troubled schools and fight against wrongheaded policies that hurt our kids," de Blasio said Monday in a statement accompanying the announcement in Brooklyn.

Bethlehem is not the same town as it was when Robert Donchez broke into city politics in 1995, the year steel production stopped in his hometown. In the 18 years the mayor-elect has been on City Council, Bethlehem has refashioned itself with more than $2 billion of development that includes concert halls, hotels, technology companies, restaurants and shops, primarily sparked by the Sands casino that rose from the ruins of Bethlehem Steel. Now, as he prepares to be sworn in to the city's top office Monday, Donchez is tasked not with blazing a new identity for Bethlehem, but with finding a way to keep the good things coming while dealing with a more sober fiscal reality that has shrunk city government in recent years.

By Meghan Moravcik Walbert, Special to The Morning Call | December 16, 2013

Paul Geissinger's last meeting as a Whitehall commissioner was Dec. 9, but as he said his good-byes he hinted that the township hasn't seen the last of him. He may make another go at gaining a seat on the Board of Commissioners. But one thing he can't do: Be appointed to a seat that has become available as a result of an election that took on the air of a game of musical chairs. The township held elections for four seats on the seven-member board in November. Three of them were traditional four-year seats, and one was a two-year seat that was created when a commissioner died early in his term in 2012.

By Pamela Lehman and Nicole Radzievich, Of The Morning Call | December 2, 2013

Bethlehem Mayor-elect Robert Donchez on Monday continued rolling out his Cabinet picks, announcing changes at two of the most visible posts and retention of some familiar faces. David Brong, who has headed the city's water and sewer resources department for the last nine years, was nominated to take over as business administrator. The water and sewer department post would be filled by Ed Boscola, an engineer who headed Northampton County's Public Works Department, and city Public Works Director Michael Alkhal would keep the position he has held since 1998 under three previous mayors.